Tick and Tock
by AranellAeariel
Summary: In the wake of the tragedy at the Blackwood/Washington Estate, Ashley and Chris are forced to cope with the demons that now haunt her. How can they continue their lives together when every shadow holds the face of a fallen friend?


Author's Note: I do not own "Until Dawn", and its respective characters. This is my first Until Dawn fic, rated M for language and eventual sexual situations.

Chapter 1

Screams. Every night, it was the screams that woke him. He relied on it, as one comes to rely on an alarm clock, as if to ascertain she was still alive, still beside him. It became almost a lulling routine as he sat up, startled from a shadowy, restless sleep, and begin to croon softly to her, pacifying her wails. What more could he do? Could he truly do little more to promise her that these memories which shredded through her sleep were in the past? That these dreams were only dreams? That these claws which tore her from restfulness were only that of distant events, long since transpired?

"Ash! Hey! Ash! Shhh..." He chanted, his voice climbing a bit higher over her inherently blood-chilling shrieks. His hands, near numb from the sudden shock of being awoken in the depth of sleep, stroked the brief length of her auburn hair, slick with a cold sweat. Her face lodged itself into the sinew of his shoulder, causing a barrier for the sounds, animalistic, metallic, terrifyingly warped, which came from her.

"Chris, oh... god... Chris, it was..." She gulped down whimpering gasps of air greedily, as if it were to be taken from her any moment. She didn't need to continue. He knew well enough what it was. It was the very same dream which had haunted him for several weeks following the incident. It seemed like so long ago that they had ascended the ominous mountain unto the Blackwood estate, and witnessed the subsequent death of a rather notable amount of their closest friends. In the clutch of night, Chris often swore he could hear the rumbling chuckle of Josh, lurking somewhere in the shadows. Ashley's terrors extended far beyond her dogged dreams - no - it was far worse for her.

Ashley was plagued by the sight of their companions, bloodied, screaming for aid that would surely never come. One day not two weeks back, Chris recalled in chagrin, he discovered Ashley, clutching herself tightly, sobbing and shrieking into the mirror, begging the battered visages of her fallen friends to allay their assault on her thoughts.

Chris was not naive to the dream which had yet again seized her in her sleep. He permitted her, however, to choke out crystalline images, which were so familiar that he himself could describe them as well as she.

"There was so much blood, Chris..." She wept harshly, her lithe frame rattling with each cumbersome breath. "I saw... I saw Josh... He kept... he kept crying! A-and Emily... oh my god..." Her petite fists grappled at his loose shirt, gathering fistfuls of fabric so tightly, he feared rather momentarily that she might tear it with just a breath more of force. "I should've... I should've looked closer... R-read it more carefully... Oh my god, Chris, it's my fault!" Her moaning wail reverberated not only throughout the less-than-generous bedroom, but through his chest. Who truly was to blame for the festival of horrors which haunted them night after night? Was it Josh, whose revenge led to more bloodshed than closure? Was it Jessica's, as she was the mastermind behind the plot which resulted in the death of Beth, and Hannah's eventual conversion to cannibalism? Was it his own, simply for not being awake? Was it the Miners, who dragged the tortured spirit of the Wendigo from tradition and into the world?

The thought of blame made his head whirl with uncertainty and a gnawing anxiousness as Ashley recounted her night terror with a mortified ardor. He hushed her, dotting the top of her head, coated liberally with the sheen of sweat, with trembling kisses. For so long, he thought in the haze of his free-time, what it would be like to finally hold her when she should cry, and kiss her when she should ache, and yet, this was nothing like what he had so earnestly anticipated when he confessed his unyielding passion for her.

"Ashley, lemme get you some... I dunno, some water." He drew from within himself a sigh so deep, it left him entirely empty. Before he even permitted her a moment to agree or protest, he slipped himself from her embrace, from the winding fingers of the bedsheets, and from the darkened room.

Ashley would dare not admit it to Chris, but the darkness, especially isolation in the predatory darkness, instilled in her a fear which she could not attribute to a decent enough title. It seemed to scream its curses into her ears, roaring its insanity into her face as she was helpless but to blink back at it. Ever since she witnessed the death of her lesser companion, Emily, darkness held the deafening ring of a gunshot tearing through the air.

"Shit! Jesus Christ..." She heard her lover hiss from the apartment kitchen. She gave a soft chuckle through her tears, and concluded it with a child-like sniffle. She unwound herself from the covers, dampened by her terror, and padded stealthily into the kitchen.

"Chris? What's wrong?" She squeaked demurely, her voice nubile, innocent, and full of a tone he could only compare to that of a young girl.

He threw his hands into the air with fiery resignation. "I dropped the fucking cup. I tripped over the damn cat." He huffed, gesturing to the water which pooled menacingly on the tile flooring. His barbed glare sought the smug tabby who ribboned herself through Ashley's bare legs, emitting a comfortable purr.

"Oh be nice, Chris, she's just trying sleep." She defended, a light air of taunting winding its way into her voice.

"Under the damn fridge?" He quipped back, giving the feline a loathsome stare as Ashley hoisted the cat from the ground, cradling it in her arms.

"She doesn't expect big mean Chris to come hulking into the kitchen at 2 a.m." She permitted herself to giggle, an odd feeling quivering through her in the wake of her nightmare. She would, without a doubt, rather laugh than weep, although in light of the tainted dream which poisoned her, it felt rather abhorrent.

Setting the kitten down, she smiled tenderly as it glanced back at her, mewling its affections before sauntering off into the shadows. As her eyes marked its path in the dark, a feeling of unadulterated terror drove ice into her veins, and her mouth hung agape as a halted scream of terror perched at the edge of her lips.

 _Josh?!_


End file.
